


the bad in each other

by makeashadow_ao3



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Only legally related, Shameless Smut, Step-siblings, happy nye amirite, lol nah they just inspired me, smutty smutty smut, the discord made me do it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-01 22:24:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17252492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeashadow_ao3/pseuds/makeashadow_ao3
Summary: new years eve at the parker family mcmansion just got interesting...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title from the feist song. idea fostered by discord and my lovely bonkamily ;)

the bad in each other  
i/ii

 

 

 

 

_NYE 1993_

She’s on her second glass of pinot before her mother pulls her aside.

“Jesus, Bonnie.” Abigail grabs the glass by its stem and sets it on the table in the foyer. She fusses, wipes her daughter’s black hair from her face and presses her cold fingers over the puffiness under jade eyes. The older woman goes to tidy the blood red lipstick Bonnie’s wearing and that’s when she pushes her away.

“God, mother! Personal space much?”

“We have guests.” 

“Exactly.” With that, Bonnie boldly downs the rest of the wine while maintaining eye contact with her flustered mother, who hopes her friends aren’t nearby to witness this tense exchange with one of her belligerent children.

Bonnie doesn’t know what the problem is. She’s allowed a glass of wine with dinner once a week and on special occasions like tonight. Plus, she and her sister have been sneaking brewskis for years. Her twenty-first birthday, while still a few months away, is a formality.

“Do we have to do this, Bonnie? Tonight?”

She gingerly sets the glass down and bats her lashes caked with mascara. Licking her lips, she grants a smile. “Do what?” she feigns innocence.

“I thought you were on my side.”

Bonnie’s gaze darkens. “You uprooted my life for your own selfish reasons. I haven’t been on your side in years.”

She goes to stalk off, but a bony hand snatches her wrist. The two women share a charged look, jaws clenched and rigid stances. “We pay for your school, your car, your trashy clothes…” Abigail’s brown eyed gaze briefly takes in the crushed velvet cocktail dress her daughter wears. “You live in this house and don’t have to earn a dime. Would you rather be like your brother?”

Bonnie yanks her arm away, holds it to her heaving chest. “He’s _not_ my brother,” she corrects in a low voice. Her ankles weaken in her heels at the mention but she clears her throat and straightens because posture is important then strides through the throng of guests. She needs another drink.

  
  
  


 

He squints through the chipped windshield at the fire. The Parker annual Christmas tree burning kicks off the New Year’s Eve party his family never fails to host, and he wonders if he should just skip it. Start the car, turn around, and head back into the city. He already did Thanksgiving and Christmas, filling his family quota for the year. No one will miss him terribly…

Sucking his teeth, the sound crisp in the silent vacuum of his car, he opens the squeaking driver’s side door. A blast of winter air hits him as he steps out and he hopes for snow. A blizzard is a perfect excuse to not visit when the holidays are over. Granted, Kai doesn’t need excuses nor does he waste his energy making them. But if one were to ask, he’d have a few handy.

The squeals of his younger siblings carry from the bonfire, the sharp scent of a burning Frasier carrying over to him. They toss random twigs and branches from around the yard into the flames to see what sparks. A plume of smoke erupts followed by a cackle while the other kids scatter yards away. Joey chucked in one of the shrubs the landscaper planted just a few months ago. It would’ve rooted by now so it took some forethought. Huh. He hasn’t spent a significant amount of time around his siblings in years, but the teenager who once acted as Kai’s shadow isn’t too different from himself at that frightful age. Destruction calls to the best of ‘em.

In reality, he’s never spent more than a consecutive week in the Parker McMansion, but he bounds up the front steps and walks through the door like he owns the place. The party is already in full swing with a few hours until midnight. He clutches the neck of his gift, a bottle of chardonnay he’ll probably end up drinking alone because it’s the cheap kind, and weaves through the crowd of family and friends. None of whom are close family or the least bit friendly.

Something latches onto his calf and he’s thrown into the nearest wall. When he looks down, he spots a mop of blonde curls and limbs like a monkey holding tight. In three, two, one… The other blond twin follows suit, gripping Kai’s other leg and he grits against an audible groan.

He doesn’t like the brats, didn’t concern himself with leaving them and their vomit and piss and smelly diapers when he moved out. It was on his parents for deciding to add another pregnancy after the six kids they already struggled to raise. As an investment banker, Joshua Parker was barely home as it was. Add on top of that, Kai’s mother dying in childbirth and Joshua’s new wife showing up a handful of months later. Yeah, they all made their beds.

With pursed lips, he stomps down the hallway to the guest den, the twins laughing merrily as they go along. He’s tempted to shake them off without a care if they crack their skulls on the hardwood floors, but he restrains the urge. There’s only one person he anticipates a fight with tonight, and it’s not his father or step-mother.

“Kai!” Another body collides with his - not the one he wants - and he all but grinds his teeth to dust. His twin sister gazes up at him, her crystal blue eyes bleary and smile like a cheshire cat. She’s toasted.

“Too many Slippery Nipples, sissy?”

Her eyes go wide and she blushes, pulling herself away from her brother. “No.” She tucks a chunky strand of raven hair behind her ear. “Dad locked the liquor cabinet. All we have is wine that tastes like rubbing alcohol.”

Jo blinks, her attention going to the bottle in his fist, but he holds it above their heads when she goes to grab for it. “Get your own, Funky Brewster.”

She throws a punch with little power behind it, her fist connecting with his chest, before she bends forward and herds the twins along with her on her new quest for a drink. He huffs and straightens out the sleeves of his navy sport coat and white button down. A hand claps him hard on the back and he turns with a clenched fist. His father scoffs at the reaction, his bride coming up to his side. Her lanky arm snakes around his waist as she paints on her cordial step-motherly smile.

“Didn’t think you’d make it,” Joshua remarks. 

“Neither did I.” He holds up the chardonnay. “Brought a gift.”

“Oh, honey,” Abigail regards the gold foiled bottle from a distance. “We’ve got lots to drink already. But, it’s a nice gesture.” 

Kai schools his expression into a mask of indifference. He knew that’d be her reaction, but it stings. Abigail isn’t his mother, not even a shade of her, and that’s fine. He was months shy of eighteen when he met her on the courthouse steps. There were no shoes for her to fill. He doesn’t even think of her as his step-mother so much as she’s _his father’s wife_. It’s a nice and clear mental line he’s drawn in the sand. Makes what he does go down easier.

And, yeah, maybe he is a little bitter. He spent the better part of two decades of life watching his parents struggle with their growing family, pinching pennies whenever they could. But when his father remarried, his luck changed. Got a big promotion and could suddenly afford a new house and cars and luxuries they’d all only dreamed about. By then Kai was a spiteful bastard and only conceded to letting Joshua help him buy an old Thunderbird from a used car lot. Aside from that, Kai wants nothing to do with his family’s new money. But the bitch could accept the wine like any other gracious host would.

His fist tightens around the neck of the bottle and he gives them both his tight smile that never reaches his cool gray eyes. “Joey’s about to start a forest fire outside. Someone needs to call Smokey.”

Joshua groans and glances over his shoulder at his wife before walking away muttering under his breath and leaving the two alone. Well, as alone as they could be in a den of mingling and tipsy partiers. An awkward lull is shortened by Abigail. She opens her mouth, closes it like she thinks better of whatever she wanted to say, and then starts again. “Your father can see what an effort you’re making. He really appreciates it. We both do.”

He squints at her, taking in her features. Her complexion’s a few shades lighter than her daughter’s but she has darker eyes. They share the same apple cheekbones, strong arched brows, and devious glints to even the most peaceful resting expressions. Maybe one day bile won’t rise up his throat at the sight of her. That reaction has long passed when it comes to her daughter.

Nodding curtly to her sentiment, he turns away and starts through the house.

  
  
  


 

He finds her in his father’s study. It’s the only quiet room on this floor and he’s glad he didn’t first go searching in the bedrooms for her. The glow of the fireplace on her face as she stares up at the mantle is a cold slice of heaven in a dark corner of hell. She tilts her head at his entrance but otherwise keeps her focus on the portrait above her.

Kai strides over and stops about a foot away, waits for her undivided attention. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

She rolls her eyes. “You saw me a week ago exactly.” 

“Which was far too long.” 

“Hm. Sounds like you should visit more.”

“That’s a negative, ghost rider.”

Setting the bottle on his father’s desk, he throws a glance up to his right at the artwork she can’t turn away from.

It’s a painting of their parents. Her mother and his father wrapped in each other’s embrace. Less American Gothic, more Springtime by Pierre Auguste Cot, as Abigail had mused when they first set into the getting the work commissioned. She wanted to recapture her and Joshua when they were younger and in puppy love before their other paramours stole them away from each other.

The portrait bears a striking resemblance to the two standing in front of it. 

“Eerie, isn’t it?”

When she finally looks at him, he breathes easier. He and Bonnie don’t normally get along. They never have. Her mother interrupted his family’s grieving his own mom. They invaded like a virus, Bonnie taking up with his twin as if they were long lost sisters and being the older sibling he never bothered to be to his brothers and sisters. He hated her for a long while, couldn’t stand to be in the same room with her. Even now, she’s infuriating but not in any way he can’t solve by burying himself in between her legs.

“Tommy Hilfiger,” she smirks, grasping the thick lapel of his coat between her fingers. “Someone’s been shopping at the outlet mall.” 

George Michael’s “Freedom” plays in the main room when he grabs her chin and bends to capture her lips. Her arms wrap around his neck, pulling him close. Her tongue is wine-wet and he grows harder with the feel of her full breasts covered in velvet against his chest. He turns them around and backs her against the desk before hoisting her on top of the mahogany. Her mouth still attached to his, she grips her red dress and shimmies it up her thighs to give him purchase between her legs.

The crackle of the fire is a pleasant companion to their moans as they feel one another like it’s been longer than a week that they’ve been in this kind of embrace. Normally, Kai can go lengths of time between seeing her and it doesn’t bother him a bit, but the way she looks tonight is sickening. He should bend her over this desk right now for daring to look this good.

“The door,” she turns her head, her lipstick smearing. He kisses her jaw and down the column of her throat as he grinds his erection into the apex of her thighs. Her head falls back. “Kai… Someone could walk in.”

As if on cue, voices carry down the hallway as if they’re approaching the office. He pulls her off the desk and hurries to the coat closet. Impatiently he shoves her inside and she bites back a yelp as she keens into a wall of sweaters and sport coats. The door creaks as they tuck into the small space and they listen for the voices. A pair of women, it seems, chat just outside the room rehashing the scandal that became Joshua Parker’s second marriage.

She pays more attention to the gossip than Kai ever did. He hated the circumstances more than anything, but he distanced himself as soon as he possibly could. Bonnie was only sixteen when she stood beside her mother in front of the justice of the peace.

His hands find her warm body, dim light coming through the cracked closet door, and pull her back to his chest. They roam, the velvet of her dress, the silk of her skin. One hand holds her by the waist against him while the other turns her jaw towards him so he can taste her again. She groans at the strain on her neck, pushing her ass into him. He’s going too slow, being too sweet and she’s not in the mood for that tonight.

Biting her bottom lip, he snarls because he gets it. They don’t have a lot of time. They never do. He herds her to the wall in front of them, the flat of her hands and the side of her face resting on the cool surface, and he crouches down. Her dancer’s legs are covered in pantyhose, and instead of pulling it down from her waist, he tugs at the thin material ripping it at her knees. She gasps at the audacity and pushes the ruined stockings down to her ankles, her panties in tow. Kicking them off with her heels, she’s now naked under her dress. Her mother already scolded her earlier for not wearing a bra.

He’s level with her shapely ass, can smell her arousal, and he’d bury his nose in her right fucking now if not for the chatty Cathys outside. When he goes down on her, he makes play of getting her to scream loud and often. That right now would only get them caught. Next time, he thinks.

After snatching her panties and stuffing them in his pocket, his palms glide up her toned legs, thick thighs, the swell of her hips as he stands. One of his hands dips under the hem of her dress to explore her wet folds while the other hand unbuckles his belt and unzips his slacks to relieve his erection. She’s wet like she always is for him, but he pulls his fingers back to taste her, licks them, and returns them to her warmth. She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip to keep from crying out when two of his fingers dip inside of her.

“Kai,” she whines, one of her hands reaching blindly behind her for him. He steps forward, his dick resting against her ass cheeks. She leans her head back to rest on his shoulder as he situated himself. He pulls himself out of his boxers and guides the tip of his cock to her entrance. She hiccups in anticipation and Kai can’t help but smirk. Bonnie is a filthy girl and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  
  
  
  


_1991_

“Have you thought more about Whitmore College?”

That question in her grandmother’s voice in the shell of her ear causes her stomach to flip. When she was researching colleges and prepping for the SATs, naturally Professor Sheila Bennett was the only guidance counselor she needed. But Bonnie made her choice and it makes her heart ache at disappointing the older woman. Bonnie wouldn’t have gone to college if her mother hadn’t threatened to kick her out of the house. Many passive aggressive dinner conversations centered around Bonnie’s apathy for higher education and whether or not Rudy would be willing to handle her moving home.

But her shame over how comfortable she’s become with her new lifestyle won out and to appease Abigail she looked into local schools. If she stayed in Portland, she could commute to campus. If she went to Washington, her parents—well, her mother and her step-father—would pay for her dorms. In the end, she chose Reed College so she could study dance, but Grams wants her to consider transferring.

At times she wishes she were more like her step-brother. Say to the money “up yours!” and live off her own hard work, but she’s grown lazy. Grams would be so ashamed if she knew the truth, but she never approved of Abigail and Joshua’s shotgun wedding. She’s never so much as crossed the Mississippi since the engagement announcement.

She twirls the spiral cord around her finger. “I dunno yet, Grams. I’m still getting settled in here.”

“Settled in? Child, you sound like you don’t want to move home anymore.” 

 _Home_. Bonnie doesn’t know what that word means anymore. It isn’t here in Portland, but it isn’t Mystic Falls either. She won’t bring up the fact that if she did move back to Virginia she couldn’t live with her father or her grandmother. They both are too taken with their own lives to house Bonnie. How lonely would that be? At least here there’s a house full of screaming kids.

“I’m just weighing my options.” A door slams down the hallway and she jumps. The family went to the botanical gardens while she was at dance class. No one else should be home. “Hey, Grams, I’ll call you back later.” She sets the pink phone on its receiver and steps across the cream carpet of her bedroom to the door.

Peeking out into the hall, she frowns. “What’s your damage?”

Joshua’s oldest son Kai slams the door to Joey’s room and glares over at her. “I can’t find my room.”

She rolls her eyes. Too up his own ass about the wedding and the new house, he never claimed one when the family moved in. “There are plenty guest rooms. Pick one.”

Returning to her phone, she picks it up and begins dialing Caroline’s number. It’s a few hours later in Virginia on a school night, but Bonnie wants to regale yet another one of Kai’s antics to her best friend. As she punches the number keys, she listens as footsteps near her cracked door, stop, then move again. He chose the one across the hallway from hers.

Curious, she puts down the phone and goes back to the door. In the spare room, he drops his duffle on the king size bed and pulls out clothes, which he stuffs haphazardly into the empty dresser drawers. She watches this, his almost manic behavior. “What are you doing?”

“I got kicked out of my dorm.” 

“Let me guess. You set something on fire.”

He turns and pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, his fingers itching for the cigarette tucked behind his ear. “Well, yeah.”

She scoffs and struts back into her room. “You’re the kid they make after school specials for.” The jib is thrown over her shoulder, and it’s not the words but the dismissive way she regards him that burns him up.

Tossing aside his cigarette, he follows after her across the hallway as she stretches herself out on her canopy bed. She rolls on her back and lifts one leg into the air, foot pointed to the ceiling. After a moment, she switches legs.

“Where is everyone?” 

“Out.” 

“And why aren’t you with them?”

She turns her head to look at him, her cheek pressed to the mattress. “I had class, duh. My recital’s coming up.”

“Right…” He scratches at the dusting of stubble on his jaw. Jo mentioned a recital and he’d not so politely declined the invitation. If he’d paid enough attention to know it was Bonnie’s, well, he’d still turn it down. 

“Did you _need_ something?” She rolls her eyes in that way that makes Kai want to wring her neck. Jo does it too but he grew up with her, so she gets a pass. Bonnie doesn’t know him like that to treat him like scum without consequences.

“Oh, am I bothering you, your majesty?”

She glares. “Not even. I’m bored. You bore me, Kai.”

It comes spewing out before he can stop it, the hate he’s been chewing on for years. “You and Abby are the worst thing to happen to this family,” he spits, ready to turn on his heels.

Her eyes widen at the mean statement and she sits up. Kai thinks she’ll burst into tears like his twin would, but Bonnie’s lips thin, her anger white hot. “You think I don’t know that? Like, people don’t look at me as the daughter of a homewrecker? You think I wanted to give up my life back home for this fucking Brady Bunch family? Jo’s cool, but Joshua and Abigail don’t do shit for the babies. We’re just kids raising kids around here while you get to live it up doing whatever the hell it is you do.”

Pushing herself off the bed, she strides up to him until she was in his face. Or, well, about a foot beneath it but the height difference doesn’t deter her. “You think I don’t want my own life instead of being stuck in this ivory tower?”

His nose flares at her closeness. She’s never broached their unspoken boundary, never said so many words to him in the few years they’ve known each other, he made sure of that. Her in her little black leotard and pastel pink tights. Her black hair pulled back tight in a bun at the crown of her head. Brown skin dewy from practice.

He jumps her. That is the only way to describe it. Kai grabs at her waist and lets gravity do its job as he backs her to and climbs over her on her bed, his mouth crushing hers. Teeth clack and air pushes out of her lungs at the unexpected force and weight of him. He takes her wrists into one of his hands and lifts them above her head. An alarmed squeak leaves her, but her lithe legs wrap around his hips to give her some leverage.

He sticks his thick tongue in her mouth and bucks his pelvis against her. She shivers beneath him but makes no effort to halt this or stop him. Which she should, right? Push him off and out the door, locking him out until the others get home? 

She wrings her hands in his hold because she wants to _touch_ him, but Kai pulls back, pupils blown wide as he stares down. Getting off her, he stumbles backwards with furrowed brows as if he experienced a bout of temporary insanity. She sits up and watches him run his fingers through his hair. “What the fuck…”

They share a heated gaze from across the room. Bonnie never once entertained any thoughts of attraction towards her step-sister’s brother because that’s what he is. They’ve never had any familial connection. Sure, their parents are married and his siblings are basically her siblings, but there’s always been a very clear, unspoken line between them. He speaks to her in clipped tones with obvious annoyance at her very presence in his life. He’s only a few minutes older than Jo, but even at the wedding he was there as his father’s witness and nothing more. This should be weird to her, and yet… 

His touch is like shaking off the heavy blanket of ambivalence that shrouded her ever since she flew to Portland years before. Her friendships, schooling, the widening gulf separating her from her mother, everything feels half-assed. She gives a smidgen more than the bare minimum but barely. Kai’s body crashing into her is as if awakening from a deep sleep.

Rolling the stale taste of nicotine from his tongue momentarily on hers, she tugs the collar of her leotard down her shoulders, pulling her arms free and leaving her chest bare to his bewildered eyes. Continuing, she pulls the leotard down her hips and legs and lets it pool at her feet. The tights fall next until she’s left in her panties. So taken by the sight of her nearly naked step-sister, Kai shakes until all he can do is clench his jaw and fists.

Bonnie walks over to him, stands on the balls of her feet, and gives him a chaste peck on the side of his tense jaw. Then she gives him another on his neck, his carotid pulsing furiously under her bruised lips. Cautiously, she places her hands on his shoulders and slides off his white windbreaker. He doesn’t stop her. Nor does he shove her back when her fingers make work of the buttons of his polo before lifting at the bottom hem. He restarts by then and helps her undress him. Her gaze lingers on his broad chest, his small copper nipples compared to her chocolate areolas, the thick line of hair trailing down his stomach to the lip of his khakis. As if asking permission, her eyes flick up to his, nails grazing the button of his jeans. 

He undoes the button himself and steps out of his pants. They are both in the same state of undress, which eases the lump in his throat. “You can touch me if you want,” she whispers, and if he hadn’t been looking at her full mouth he would’ve thought he imagined it.

Like a clumsy virgin, which he is not, he goes for her tits. She has a modest rack, supple under his kneading hands. Nipples pebble under his touch and he dips his head to take one in his mouth. Her mouth falls open and a whimper fills the large room. He lets go and stands to his full height. That sound she made...he wants to hear it again.

Kai gets her by her underarms and jerks her upwards, and she encircles him again. He presses his mouth to hers and carries her back to the bed. She bounces slightly off the mattress and lets out a giggle. He pulls her bottom lip between his teeth, which elicits a throaty moan. “Do that again.”

“Make me,” she challenges. 

He grinds his hardness against her and she shivers again. They feel each other up, the wide span of his back, the smooth pane of her torso. Her fingers play at the waist of his boxers and he pulls away from her mouth. “I, uh, I don’t have…” 

“S’okay. I’m on the pill,” she mutters.

His brow furrows, a war between what his body not wants but _needs_ at this point and what his mind is telling him is a very bad idea. Ignoring for a moment who she is and where they are, there’s an epidemic going on and he knows better than this. His campus is littered with the posters and their catchy slogans. But she hooks her leg over his hip, and he can feel warmth through the two thin pieces of fabric keeping them apart. “Bon…”

Squirming beneath him, she groans. “I’m good, I promise.”

They meet eyes for a long moment. “Or you could leave.” There’s a malicious glint to her words and she means for it to sting, but there’s no fire behind them. No matter how standoffish and argumentative he can be, she doesn’t believe he’d disrespect her by ignoring if she wanted to stop right now. But her mind is too cloudy with the expectations others have for her to put a stop to this. They’ve muddled her good sense, so it’s down to Kai now.

His gaze drops to her lips and he dips to kiss her again, this time with renewed fervor. She scoots his boxers down his hips while he pushes the moist seat of her panties to the side. He doesn’t need much help entering her, but she’s so tight he thinks he’ll come right then. They still, their bodies stiffening. While Bonnie’s breath catches in her throat, she’s the first to move. She tilts her hips to meet him, to take in more of him, and his forehead drops to her shoulder.

“God,” he exhales and if anyone knew about this blasphemous act, he’d surely be damned. She slowly undulates under him until he catches her rhythm and begins to move with her. Her fingers thread through his hair before resting at the nape of his neck while her other hand lightly presses on his lower back to let him know she can take it. When he’s sure he’s not going to blow his load prematurely, he picks up the pace. Her eyes shutter closed as their rutting rocks the metal bedframe against the wall.

Her lips part open with a quivering moan and, lifting his head, Kai watches her face contort in rapture. She feels good, better than he could’ve imagined, but this is a side of her he’s never seen before. Vulnerable and pure right down to her atoms. He’s not one for sentiment, but fuck. She looks like an angel.

She tenses around him, a wave of pleasure gaining momentum quicker than she realizes, before her back arches with tremors of a climax riding through her. Her shuddering orgasm catches him off guard and triggers his own until he’s emptied himself inside of her.

Sliding out limply, he collapses on the bed beside her, his vision spotty. He regulates his heavy breathing when he notices she’s quiet beside him. He turns his head to look at her.

Bonnie drags her gaze from the ceiling and pulls the sheets up to her chest. As she sits up his spunk leaks out of her, and she vows to wash her sheets tonight once she’s sure the rest of the family is asleep. With her overwhelming lust sated, she can hardly fathom what just took place. She had sex...with Kai Parker. “This is...sick,” she murmurs to herself.

“Hm, only legally.” She shoots him a look because she doesn’t care for semantics, but he’s right. They’re only legally connected and hardly then. 

“It’s still sick.”

His dark eyebrows bounce, and then the mattress groans when he pushes off the bed. Not bothering to get dressed, he gathers his clothes and leans over to press a kiss to her sweaty forehead. “Whatever you say, _sissy_.”  

Glaring, she angrily chucks one of her decorative pillows at his naked, departing form. A chuckle echoes through the house as he crosses the hall to his room and shuts the door.

  
  
  


 

At the end of the semester, her family sits clustered taking up half of two rows to watch Bonnie’s recital. She’d worked so hard on her solo routine to Whitney Houston’s "I’m Your Baby Tonight", she’s sweaty and out of breath as she finishes. When the lights come up and she takes her bows, she beams at her clapping sisters and brothers waving their bouquets of roses meant for her before her attention moves to the stoic, lone figure staring from the back of the auditorium.

  
  
  


 

_NYE 1993_

He teases her entrance with his tip, swiping it back and forth against her folds, and she whines with her face pressed to the wall. He breathes hot air against her ear and finally pushes into her. They sigh in tandem, all the stress they carried from the day melting away. She sits back on him and he holds her by the waist to keep her close. Teeth sink into her shoulder when he pulls out almost completely before sheathing himself again. He glides in and out snuggly like he’s making himself at home, and in a way he is.

He’d been with his handful of girls before Bonnie. Girls his mom would’ve liked, girls that made his younger brothers jealous. But no one compares to this, to her. And honestly, under different circumstances, he thinks his mom would’ve really liked Bonnie. Joey certainly is jealous though he has no clue he has a real reason to be envious.

He picks up the pace and she lets out a moan. The sound, while heavenly, is dangerous for them both, so he retrieves her panties and stuffs the balled up fabric between her lips, which muffles a squeal.

  
  
  


 

_1992_

Two months go by when a knock comes to Kai’s apartment door. He’d gotten in from classes not twenty minutes ago, one hand in a bag of chips while the other flips through one of his mom’s old cookbooks looking for a recipe for dinner. He abandons both, wipes his oily fingers on his pant leg, and opens the front door. In front of him is a trembling Bonnie, drenched head to toe with her purple backpack hooked over one shoulder.

“Hey,” he greets her tentatively. He never gave her his address, so he has no clue how she found where he lives.

“Hi.” She blinks water droplets from her long lashes and makes a move to walk into the apartment, but Kai’s arm bars her entrance. “What, do you have a girl in there?”

“No.” But he doesn’t move and the hesitation causes Bonnie to deflate a little.

“My car’s in the shop and Jo doesn’t get out of class until late. This is as far as the bus would take me.” 

“ _You?_  Took the bus?” The image of this drowned mouse of a southern belle using public transit gets him to crack a wry grin. 

“Are you just going to stand there and mock me or are you going to let me in?”

He releases a heavy exhale then allows her inside. Preoccupied with dropping her bag and shaking off her wet denim jacket, she doesn’t notice him lock the door and approach her from behind. Spinning her to face him, he captures her lips and pulls her flush to his body. Despite her cold and wet clothes, she’s so warm she’s practically steaming in his embrace and he’s tempted to strip her bare right where they stand.

“Kai,” she murmurs against his mouth and he takes the opportunity to stick his tongue in her mouth. She tastes like coffee and the candied ginger her grandmother makes by hand and sends west. He inhales the breath she lets out and holds her by her neck to keep her there. She mumbles something before her hands find his chest and push him away. “I, I didn’t come here for…”

“Sex?” He feels as if he’s lost something being ripped from her lips, so he collects himself. Stands up straighter and clears his throat.

“I just wanted to get out of the rain.”

“There’s a library on your campus.”

She scoffs incredulously. “So what, we have sex once and that’s all there is now?”

“What else is there? You forget, I don’t particularly like you or your mom, Bonnie.” Her jaw drops and she mutters something to herself which Kai doesn’t quite catch. “What’d you say?”

“I said I can’t believe I lost my virginity to you.”

His face loses color. “W- _what_?”

“Oh, grow up!” Her features clench as she picks up her jacket and bag. It was a mistake coming here, but she’d sat in the parking lot once when Jo came by to visit, so she figured she’d stop by. She wasn’t sure what she expected, though. “What, you thought because you were my first I’m supposed to be chasing after you like a pussycat?” 

“You didn’t tell me _that_ when we…” He grits his teeth, the new knowledge sitting uneasily in his gut. “You told me you were on the pill.”

“And so you assumed I was a tramp throwing it at anyone?”

“No.” He watches her move to the door and panic grips him. He rushes over and puts his hand against the wood, his weight resting on the door. Stubbornly, she struggles with the knob anyway. “I just wish you would’ve told me.”

“Why? What would it have changed?”

He shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe I would’ve been...gentler?”

A frown still etched on her face, she lets go of the knob and crosses her arms. “You were fine,” she mutters.

“Just fine?” He sniffs, to which she rolls her eyes. “I can do better than fine.”

Her hands go up as she backs away from him and deeper into the apartment. “If you think I’ll let you touch me again... You just said you don’t even like me. I’m just a fuck to you, not a friend, and I’m good, thanks.”

“Bonnie, I didn’t mean—“  

“Didn’t you, though?”

Stepping toward her, he wishes he could swallow the words, choke on them.

Her expression grows downcast, her eyes going to the carpet as she steels her nerves. “If it makes you feel better, it didn’t mean anything. I’d been wanting to lose it for a while and I figured if I did it with you...you couldn’t tell anyone about it.” She shrugs. “Win, win.”

A wave of heat crawls up his neck, and he clenches his teeth. His eyes mist over and he blinks away whatever caused the unwelcomed tear production. “You’re _sick._ ” 

“Me?” Green eyes flash up. “You started it.”

“I may have lost my mind for kissing you, but you lured me into your little web stripping in front of me and telling me to touch you.” 

She releases a rolling laugh, a cold edge to the hollow sound chipping from her chest. “Oh, aren’t you just a saint? Like I could make you do anything you didn’t want to. I can barely keep you in a conversation let alone the same room as me, but _I_ corrupted _you_. Okay...” She shrugs the strap of her bag up her shoulder. “I’m so outta here.”

“Bonnie…” He turns to chase her if he has to, but she spins on her heels as if ready for round two of this fight. Deliberately, he approaches her and crowds her into the door. Her back meets the wood with a thud and she purposely maintains eye contacts daring him to intimidate her. Keeping her gaze, he takes her jacket and slides her backpack down her shoulder and tosses them both to the side.

Unsure what he’ll do next, she flushes at his proximity. The last time they were alone together, she had the upper hand coxing him into being comfortable around her, but now she’s in an unfamiliar place and just admitted things that obviously pissed him off. Jo’s hinted at her twin’s violent streak and she wonders if now she should be worried if she pushed too much.

He breaks eye contact first, dilated pupils dropping a fraction lower to her parted lips. Hands come up to hold her neck, thumbs tenderly running along her jaw. “I can do better than fine,” he murmurs, his mouth a whisper on her. They meet eyes again, and when she doesn’t pull back or push him away he takes that as he cue to seal his lips to hers.

At first she doesn’t respond, doesn’t breath, just lets their faces remain pressed together. Their eyes open and searching. He pulls back incrementally and prays that was okay. Whatever this _thing_ is between them, as fucked up as it is, means bupkis if it isn’t completely mutual.

Skinny fingers grip his forearms and tug, his hands loosening their hold until they fall to his side. Defeat washes over him when she turns her back on him. Gulping, she locks the door. The clink of the metal engaging renews a flame in Kai and he watches her with hopeful wonder. Head bowed, she faces him again and drags her gaze up this tall form. “No one can know.”

“Duh.”

“Shut up,” she snaps. “I mean it. You can’t tell Jo. Or Joshua. Or your friends.”

In his head he rattles off snide retorts. _Are you slow? Why the hell would I tell Jo? Or my_ dad _? What friends?_ But he only nods and says, “Okay. Whatever you want.”

She leans on the door and tries to gather the courage to step toward him. He’s standing there with his expressive eyes and pouty lips and, yes, he can be mean but she’s been a bitch to him too, so she tells herself she can handle this. Bonnie Bennett can take whatever Kai Parker dishes out.

“What do you want to do with me?” she wonders.

She told him it didn’t matter, that it meant nothing, so...

Like a gentleman, he holds his hand out to her and she takes it. She thinks he’s going to lead her to his bedroom but instead he detours to the couch. He sits and prompts her to straddle his lap, which she does. Her eye level is higher than his, so he gazes up at the stubborn tilt to her chin and the bottom lip she keeps worrying.

First things first, he wants to make her comfortable. It’s no fun if she’s so goddamn uptight about being with him. Hardly seems worth the effort if that’s going to be the case. “Look at me.”

Shivering, she obeys. There’s a tenderness in his expression that wasn’t there a few months ago and it makes Bonnie want to shrink and hide. It feels like being seen and it makes her skin crawl. “What?” she huffs. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

He squints and grabs her chin with his thumb and finger so she can stop avoiding his stare. “Like what?”

“I dunno. _That.”_

He doesn’t know what _that_ looks like, but he has an idea. He’s memorizing her face, the hiccuping way she breathes around him, the tremors running through her body from the cold and rain. “You want me to stop?”

She swallows. She’s seen that particular look before by guys who weren’t Kai and definitely never directed at her. It’s the way any girl would kill for someone to look at them. Intrigue and interest. Adoration and devotion. Not that that’s how he feels about her because he just said he doesn’t even like her, but Bonnie doesn’t have a lot of experiences to compare this to.

A shield goes up. “You know this is just sex, right?”

“I know,” he answers immediately but his face stays the same. “Is that going to be a problem?”

She sneers down at him. “Screw you.” Rolling her eyes, she shakes out of his hold on her face and lifts her soaked grey Portland Trail Blazers sweatshirt over her head. Next she pulls her red turtleneck off, leaving her in her Levi’s and bra. She goes for the button of her jeans at her navel, but other hands stop her. Frowning like a spoiled child, she glares at him.

“I just… Is it okay if I just kiss you for a while?”

Her frown deepens, not because that’s an outrageous request but because it’s so unlike him. Kai’s brash and abrasive and wanting to neck for the sake of it catches her off guard. “Okay...but take your shirt off, too. I’m not going to be the only who’s naked.”

He could correct her. She’s hardly uncovered and her 501s jeans are a chastity belt if he’s ever seen one. But he needs her to be comfortable. The time for jokes can come later.

Yanking off his t-shirt, he lets her settle into him, her hands on his chest. He’s put on some muscle in the past few years and she notices. She runs her palms over him, spans his sternum to his shoulders and down his arms.

Bonnie’s so damn timid that Kai has no choice but to make the first move. Leaning up, he presses his open lips to her neck and _sucks_. He wants to mark her. The next time she looks in the mirror, she’ll be faced with a reminder until it fades...or until he marks her again.

She squirms. “You’re going to give me a hickey.”

“Good.”

“Kai!”

“You have a turtleneck.”

She cranes her neck out of his reach and stares at him. There’s amusement and light in place of that stupid adoration, and that she can deal with. They brush noses when she moves in, his heavy exhale tickling her top lip, and she finally kisses him.

  
  
  


 

_NYE 1993_

One breast in his hand while he pistons in and out of her, he takes her ear in his mouth, lolls his tongue around her pearl earring, and lets his other hand travels down the front of her body. He lightly rubs his thumb over her bundle of nerves and she jolts, backing into him. The movement sinks him into her to the hilt, and they both groan. “Behave,” he growls and she chuckles in response.

There’s a warm loosening in his lower back, but he fights to keep his pace because he’s got frustration to work out and Bonnie clearly feels the same, her body slanting forward to give him better access.

There’s an entire house full of guests, but when they’re together it’s as if the world falls away. Part of the thrill is the danger of getting caught, but oftentimes they get too carried away to care. Like right now, their siblings are laughing and playing right down the hall, their parents schmoozing with their bougie friends. In earlier efforts to be careful, Bonnie and Kai have never had sex this close to their family. They either do it when no one’s home or they’re at Kai’s or the handful of times they’ve gone at it in one of their cars. This asks for disaster but, the way he pulls her supple form against his as he thrusts with his last bit of strength, his hot breath on her ear, they couldn’t care less. 

His throat catches, an orgasm racking his whole body, but he keeps stroking and rides her through her own climax. They rock into one another languidly, coating his flagging erection with his seed and her essence. He’s slow to pull out, cherishing the way she clenches around him to keep him in place, and he realizes they have nothing to wipe themselves off with. She spits out the panties in her mouth, but he snatches them from her. They’re his keepsake. Plus, he has a better idea.

 He spins them around until his back hits the wall he just had her pressed against and he turns her in his arms for a kiss. She whines, “You already ripped my tights. I can’t walk around here with you _dripping_ out of me.” 

“I got you, baby,” he murmurs against her lips. 

“Oh, you got me?”

“ _I got you,_ ” he repeats as he slides down the wall. She remains upright, that is until he sits on the floor of the closet and hooks her leg over his shoulder. Off-balance, she braces herself with one hand on the wall. He doesn’t wait for her to steady herself before he leans his face into her cunt, takes in her scent mixed with his. The tip of his sharp nose rubs against her clit and her mouth falls open. Snapping her teeth shut, she purrs at his tongue laving over her and licking out his cum.

Trembling, she emphatically shakes her free hand at him and he smirks against her. He pulls back only a little to hand her panties up and watch her stuff them back in her mouth. With a sigh, her fingers thread through his head and nudge him back to his mission, which he gladly resumes and strokes himself all the while.

When he finishes tongue fucking her through another climax, she sinks onto his lap, her cunt on his exposed, revived erection. After spitting out her panties once more, she holds him by the sides of his face and kisses him deeply, the taste of him and herself on their tongues. “Don’t call me baby.”

He ducks and bites at her chin. “You love it.”

Completely sated by the two orgasms he gave her, she adjusts, her knees on either side of his thighs and rubs herself along his cock. She could go for a third round even if it’s just to get him off, but really she just wants _this_. This closeness. It’s something foreign to her yet with Kai it’s so familiar. She’s trained her mind to not miss him when he’s gone, but her body hasn’t caught up yet. It’s easier if it’s just sex. Anything bordering on emotional would be risky. In another life maybe they’d have a chance, but here in this coat closet, well, that’s the best they can do.

  
  
  


 

_1989_

There’s a party going on and he’s separated himself from the festivities. Jo put the twins down to sleep and he stuck around long enough to hear his brothers’ and sisters’ off-key rendition of Happy Birthday, but that’s about as much as he can handle. He takes a long drag, blows a cloud of smoke, and then spits, a wad of saliva sailing over the railing to the shrubbery below.

The front door opens and someone steps outside. He doesn’t bother to turn to see who nor does he ash his cigarette. He’s officially eighteen now. His dad or step-mom can’t tell him shit. _Step-mom_. Ugh, he inwardly groans and tugs another inhale.

“Jo’s opening her gifts.”

“Good for her.”

Light steps cross the white porch until she stands beside him. It’s a warm April night for Portland, but she still rubs her hands up and down her upper arms against some unknown chill. “Joshua said the house will be ready for all of us to move into in two weeks.”

“Have fun without me.” Her brows furrow in confusion. “I’m staying with a buddy of mine until I start school in the fall.” Then he shakes his head because why is he even telling her this? It’s kind of a lie. It’s less of a buddy and more of a guy who lets him trade shifts at the work when he needs to without demanding an explanation. And when that guy gets sick of Kai, he’ll have charmed someone else into letting him couch surf at their place. He’ll take a dirty mattress over what’s bound to be chaos at the new house.

Bonnie chews on her bottom lip. There’s got to be a way to get through to this guy. He’s not the talkative type, but he could at least try. She is. They all are. “My mother’s already done the paperwork to adopt Livvie and Luke, Joey and the rest of them. Said she’d take on you and Jo if you were still my age.”

“Pass.”

“Your father offered to adopt me.”

His nostrils flare and he finally makes eye contact with the girl. She’s brown and gangly, her arms and legs too skinny. Her emerald eyes brighten her wide face but they look off. Almost unnatural. A little too murky, like sewage. He’s an awkward eighteen, nose a little too big for his face, but he’s losing his baby fat. His features will sharpen in time. 

“They said it’d help,” she rambles on. “Make my insurance and school records and bank account easier to manage.”

“Turn him down.” It’s less of a suggestion and more of a command. A rebuff. You have no right to carry the Parker name. No amount of lawyers and paperwork will make you a part of this family.

“Why?”

He cants his head to the side and squints in a manner she finds condescending. “If my dad adopts you, that means your dad doesn’t have to pay child support anymore. He stops having to worry about getting you for holidays and sending you cards for your birthday. He gets to forget about you just like that.” He snaps his fingers and she jumps at the sudden sound. 

“If my dad adopts you, you’ll be one of the kids. Nothing and no one special but another mouth to feed. Hey, you can play babysitter while our parents get to have date night and do god knows what while you’re stuck at home on Friday nights. That sound like fun, princess?”

She burns hot at the nickname, but they’re all good points. Nothing she hadn’t thought already. She gulps. “Anything else?” 

He matter-of-factly wiggles his eyebrows. “My dad could adopt you and your mom can try to mother my siblings, but you’ll never be my sister.”

“Jo likes me,” she pouts. “I don’t get what _your_ problem is with me.”

He strides over and stares down at her. She matches his probing gaze with her own, his stacking bricks one atop the other while hers is an open door. He buttons his lips then scoffs, cuts his eyes, and walks away.

  
  
  


 

_NYE 1993_

Grinding against him, she moans. “We can leave, you know. Sneak out of here and go back to your place. They won’t miss us.” 

“They won’t miss me,” he corrects, his head tilted back and eyes squeezed shut as she teases him with her waiting entrance.

She frowns. “You’d be surprised. They all—”

He snatches her wrists up which effectively shuts her up. “You’re the one on my dick, Bonnie. I don’t want to talk or think about _them.”_

She grasps his collar and slides until his tip is right _there._  “Then I’m suggesting we blow this popsicle stand.” Gritting his teeth, he grips her hips to keep her still because she’s going to make him cum just from the teasing. He wants a turn with her pretty mouth, but she’s right. If they keep going at it the way they are, they’ll spend the whole night in this closet.

“Get up,” he groans, his voice gruff with want. They scramble to their feet and adjust themselves. Her tights are toast, so she pulls down her dress, slips back into her shoes, and hopes she doesn’t have to talk to anyone before she makes it out the house. Kai stuffs himself back in his pants and shakes his hand through his hair. Bonnie goes for the door handle, but he pulls her back to him for one more kiss before they have to pretend they can’t stand each other again. She sighs and her body sways towards him, her legs a little unsteady in her heels.

A rumble of voices grow in volume in the hallway accompanied by a shuffle of feet and a slamming of the office door. Bonnie stiffens against Kai, her ears attuned to an arguing couple. Through the crack in the not fully closed closet door, they spy their parents in the middle of a tense argument.

“I’m not having this fight with you again, Abigail.”

“It’s only a fight because you won’t even have a conversation. You’re like talking to a sack of potatoes.” 

“Potatoes?” he laughs wryly while he loosens the burgundy tie around his neck. “Is this really the time? We have guests.”

“You’re the one who’s upset over a phone call. He only wanted to speak to his daughter.”

“And where is she, huh? Where’s _your_ daughter?”

“Don’t do that,” she scoffs and crosses her arms across her chest. “Giving you power of attorney was her decision to make and she was old enough to make that choice without feeling pressured. She chose her _father_.”

“I just,” he groans in irritation. “It’s been five years and this doesn’t feel like the family it was supposed to be. Especially when you’re sneaking phone calls with your ex-boyfriend.”

“Sneaking? He called on the main line. I answered the phone in the house full of people. There was no secrecy, Joshua. There’s nothing between Rudy and I.”

“I’ve heard that one before.”

Abigail blinks in shock. “Wow. Twenty-one years later and you’re still harping on that.” 

Indignantly, he puffs his chest out. “I forgave you, Abby. And I tried to forget—”

“You _forgave_ me? You had a hunch that Rudy had eyes for me and instead of talking to me about it, you cheated on me with Sarah and had twins with her. Rudy was basically my consolation prize, but I’m supposed to be stroking your ego right now? Puh-lease.”

She turns on her heel and goes to stomp off, but Joshua yanks her arm back. They struggle, her trying to wretch out of his grasp and him fighting to keep her close. She regains ownership of her arm, glares at him, and then pushes him square in the chest. The force of the shove has him stumbling backwards, but he can’t catch himself. He loses his balance and knocks his head on the corner of the desk on his way down.

Bonnie can’t quite stifle her gasp, which thankfully Kai’s quick hand smothers.

Joshua slumps to the floor and stays there. Hands covering her mouth, Abigail steps tentatively towards her husband, eyes darting along his form to see if he’s breathing. He isn’t.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here it is! bruh. this is as unbeta'd as always, but so much thanks to kingcobrakai1972 and kurokimio for their feedback! i love this family!

the bad in each other

ii/ii

 

 

 

 

_NYE 1993_

“Josh? ...Joshua baby?” Abigail creeps closer.

Kai keeps his hand latched over Bonnie’s mouth, but her body stutters with her hammering heart. His breathing remains even, chest rising and falling against her back and she wonders how he’s so calm. That’s his _father_. Why hasn’t he burst out of the closet and raged at her mother or rushed to check on Joshua yet? Then she remembers…

The music thuds at a decibel Bonnie can safely speak under. She bites Kai’s fingers with her lips to get him to pull away and she whirls around in his arms, her hands resting flat on his torso. His eyes are wide and black. She can’t quite figure out what he’s feeling but he is thinking. Calculating. “How do we—”

“I need to go out there.”

“But, my m—”

“Your mom just killed my dad.”

The statement takes the air out of the small space. She expects him to push her away and turn his back. _This is it_ , she thinks. The wedge. There was bound to be one between them eventually. Inevitable. She’s always felt the impending doom. And here it is. A heated shove and a drunken loss of balance is what’s going to rip Kai away from her grasp, and the realization makes her dizzy.

He senses her rigidness in his embrace, so he dips to press his lips to her dewy temple. “Come on…”

The damned closet door creaks as it’s pushed wider until it swings completely open. Abigail’s head whips in its direction and her brows knit together. “Malachai?” Frightened brown eyes grow bewildered. “What… I, uh...”

A gasp catches in her throat when Bonnie steps out after. Her daughter’s head is bowed, the tips of her trembling fingers clinging to the hand Kai extends behind him. “Bonnie. What were you two… Oh, dear god.” Clutching the pearls around her neck, she sighs in resignation, a scarf finally pulled from over her eyes.

Letting go of his hand, Bonnie crosses her arms in an effort to hide from her mother’s shame. She doesn’t like her dirty little secret being revealed, but she cringes at how Abigail seems to have known. Or that maybe her mother wasn’t paying attention before but now that she knows _it_ _makes sense_. Either way, Bonnie wants to lash out. Like, _way to ruin a good thing but this would’ve never happened if you hadn’t married Joshua in the first place._ Joshua.

Kai strides forward and drops to his haunches in front of his father. He raises a hand to touch him but stops short. Instead he holds the back of his hand under Joshua’s nose. It’s slightly crooked from the time he got decked by his son, an enraged seventeen year old grieving his dead mother. No air tickles skin.

“Kai…”

He glances over his shoulder at Bonnie, pointing a bony finger at the inert body. Looking back down, he notices the dark stain like a halo on the hardwood floor around his father’s bashed in head. It’s a lot of fucking blood. White hot heat rushes up his neck, and he thinks to wrap his hands around the neck of the woman who took his remaining parent from him and watch the life drain from her eyes.

Lifting his head to pin Abby with a glare, he catches sight of Bonnie’s shivering form. A skinny strap of her dress hangs off her shoulder, her arms littered with goosebumps, and long, wavy hair disheveled from their romp in the closet. His instinct is to wrap her up and carry her to the nearest bed, so he follows that response instead of the one that’ll leave them both parent-less tonight on the west coast.

“Jesus H Christ,” he mutters then pushes off his knees and stands to his full height. “We need to leave this room. Right now. Don’t touch anything else. Just...go.”

“Leave? Wha— We can’t leave him here.” His stepmother wants to debate and he rethinks strangling her.

“Abby, my dad is dead because of you. You don’t get to argue with me right now. _Go._ ”

Whatever she sees in Kai’s glower is enough to clamp her mouth shut. She nods. Her eyes dart to Bonnie before turning and hurrying to the door. Kai snatches his bottle of champagne then presses his hand to the small of Bonnie’s back and urges her forward. Emboldened by this take charge attitude, he peeks into the hallway and thankfully finds it empty. A song by that whiny Irish band Jo likes so much fills the air along with the sound of joyous murmurs that it’s only an hour until the new year floating from the big main room where the guests have migrated. He cranes his neck to the side. “Bonnie. Sheila’s room. Now.”

The younger woman quickly obeys, slipping into the hall and tucking into the guest room her grandmother’s never used. “Abby. Two minutes.”

“What?”

“Go to the bathroom. Give us two minutes and then come to Sheila’s room.”

She whimpers while wringing her expensive necklace, a gift from her husband, then sneaks a glance at the body she’s abandoning. Collecting herself, she too enters the hallway, throws a last look back at Kai before crossing to the guest half-bath and closing the door.

Kai sucks his teeth. The overwhelming urge to punch a hole in the wall racks his body, but he beats it back with sheer force of will and follows Bonnie to the room next door.

 

 

 

 

_1992_

The Bose speakers blare the rhythmic production of the Jackson family’s songstress, so he leans into her ear to be heard. Her lips drop open in a gape as she takes in whatever he’s saying before she breaks laughter, folding at the middle to catch her breath. Tears dot the corners of her eyes and she’s so overtaken by the joke and the guy who made it, she doesn’t notice _his_ presence.

Kai strides over to the laughing duo and stops astride Bonnie. The tall guy’s wide grin drops incrementally. “Hey…”

She’s slow to sober, even slower to recognize how tense Kai is. _Where the hell did he come from?_ she thinks and warms at his general presence. How’d even know where she was? “Hey, Kai.”

He says nothing, just glares at her expectantly. “ _Okay_. Kai, this is Jesse. Jesse, Kai. He’s my—” She clears her throat. “This is Jo’s twin.”

“Oh, cool.” Jesse holds out his hand, which the Parker gives a firm shake. “Nice to meet you, man.”

Kai gives a pained smile then tightly wraps his fingers of that same hand around Bonnie’s upper arm and squeezes. “Speaking of Jo… We have to go,” he says through gritted teeth, and it’s lost to mister tall, tan, and handsome under the bass of the music but it tickles the shell of her ear. She trembles in his grasp.

Big, green orbs flash up to meet his and she swallows at the intensity in his darkening grey eyes. She knows he’s lying about Jo. Not sure how she knows, but she does. “Is everything okay?”

“No, _sissy_. Everything is not okay.”

Without hesitation or the chance to bid Jesse farewell, he pulls her through the crowded living room. The party is in full swing and, after pushing past a group of people hitting a blunt that gives off a skunky odor, the house vomits them from the festivities.

“God, Kai. Don’t be such a party pooper. He’s just a guy from class.”

He ignores her. She tells him her car is a few yards away and he grumbles they’ll get it in the morning. They stop at the passenger side of his eggshell white Thunderbird, and he breathes through his nose to calm his nerves then opens the door because he still has some manners. Frowning, she tucks into the passenger seat and yanks the door shut before he can close it for her.

He rounds the hood, ducks into the driver’s seat, and revs the engine before pulling into the middle of the street and speeding out of the suburb. The cab of the vintage car is clean and quiet and the two willfully ignore the other, driving in silence in the direction of Kai’s apartment (the Parker McMansion is in the opposite direction). Neither have on their seatbelts and Bonnie belatedly realizes this but is too pissed to care.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were jealous.”

He slams on the brakes. Not hard enough to come to a complete stop but enough to skid off to the shoulder of the dark road and throw the car in park. He kills the engine, rotates in his seat, and leans over the center console, his arm slung over the back of her seat. A shadow mars his face, his normally cool eyes black pools, and lips are in a sneer.

“I’m not fucking you if you’re fucking other guys.”

She squeaks, her mouth gaping open like a fish out of water. She rolls her shoulders back, straightens into a defensive posture. Her eyebrow arches. “You never said we were exclusive. Do you see me wearing your varisty jacket or your class ring? Are we going steady? And I told you he’s in my sociology class. We were talking about our dimwit of a professor. That’s it.

“Besides.” She folds her arms and tilts her jaw up. “What do you care?”

His jaw clenches with emotion he can’t quite explain. So he repeats himself. “I’m not fucking you if you’re going to be fucking other people.”

“Aren’t _you_?”

That stops him. He and Bonnie have only been going at it for a few months but he assumed it went without saying. Then again, they don’t _talk_ much. Kai tried to brook that obstacle, get to know the young woman he habitually fooled around with in bed. He’d asked something harmless, did she miss her hometown or something stupid like that. She struck him with a curious yet stern look. “Yeah, we’re not doing this.”

“This?”

“Pillowtalk. Getting to know one another. That’s a one way ticket to things becoming messy, but I don’t have to tell you that.”

He’d glared, swallowed his pride, and got up from bed claiming to need a cigarette. His bare back to her as he smoked on his little balcony, she left shortly after that without saying goodbye.

Kai should tell her off, give her exactly what for. _You think I’d be here if I could get some elsewhere? You think I’d be here if I_ wanted _someone else?_ That’s the stupidest fucking question he’s ever heard and he has seven younger siblings—including his twin. He scoffs.

“No, I’m not,” he finally answers in a condescending tone because it should be obvious. It should be very fucking clear that he has no interest in anyone who isn’t her.

She grimaces. “Why not?” There’s genuine concern under her contempt, and Kai is so close to wringing her neck.

His nostrils flare. He turns forward and grips the large steering wheel like both their lives depend on it. The next words out of his mouth have to be carefully chosen. If he accidentally insults her, she’ll get out and threaten to walk home which is the opposite of how he wants the rest of the night to go. But she’s so goddamn frustrating he wants to scream.

“Bonnie,” he grits and, stubbornly, she lets her name hang in the air. “As long as you and I are...sleeping together, I don’t have a need to look at other girls.”

He casts a gaze in her direction. “Is that so hard to believe?”

She chews on her bottom lip looking for a tell, a tic. Something to signal he’s lying. His personality can leave something to be desired, standards so high few can reach them, but he’s smoking hot and even he’s aware of how good looking he is. If he turned his attention on them, any girl would melt.

“It makes no sense,” she grumbles. When he squints in response, she sighs, runs her hand across her forehead in that way her mother does when she’s exasperated. “This is complicated enough by virtue of our...connection to one another. You should be looking for the first out.”

“Are you?”

“No, are you?” she challenges.

“I ju— God, Bonnie.” He leans across the center console again and grabs her face in a greedy kiss. She meets him eagerly, her arms encircling his neck to bring him closer in the chilly car.

“I’m so mad at you right now,” she breathes. Who the hell does he think he is storming around like he owns her? Jesse is funny and very pretty but ultimately harmless. But if she wanted him… It’s none of Kai’s business.

“I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head, puffy lips slipping across each other. “No, you’re not.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“Whatever you say, princess.” The sound of mild traffic can be heard from a few streets away and a patrol car could cruise by at any moment, but there’s no way he can make it back to his place. Not with this chubby between his legs and her so close and willing. “Get in the back.”

She scrambles rather gracelessly between the front seats and he follows suit. They peel out of their clothes, Kai losing his socks, converses, and jeans and Bonnie out of her acid washed denim jacket, socks, penny loafers, and panties. He pulls her onto his lap, the skirt of her black, daisy spotted dress fluttering around where their bodies meet. The last time she was straddling him like this was in his apartment where they made out for a while before he took her to his bedroom. He needs more than just tonsil hockey to satisfy him right now, though. Still, he reaches up and places his hand around the front of her neck. She dips and meets his mouth with her own.

He grinds up into her and she groans, her sex rubbing against his boxer clad boner. The cracking leather of the seats is unyielding against her bare skin, but she sits up to give him room to remove his boxers and then braces her knees against his hips. She’s a little too dry for him to slip in as easily as he usually does, but she undulates regardless. He deserves this rough friction for the way he treated her and her friend.

Their kisses are harsh and crushing with too much teeth. While she had a red plastic cup in hand at the party, Kai only tastes cola on her tongue. When they break apart for air, he goes for her throat. He’s marking her for sure. Let this Jesse guy see it come their Monday morning lecture and exactly wonder why she had to hurry off with her “stepbrother”. He suckles on the thin, sensitive skin of her neck eliciting a whimper as she sits down taking in all of him. Her inner walls pulse around him, allowing for slick movement the longer he latches onto her.

Instead of bouncing straight up and down, she rolls her hips forward and his cock slides out and then back into her hitting a new angle with each thrust. Whatever she’s doing has his cock stroking her ridges and her head falls heavy in the crook of his neck. So far they’ve never had mediocre sex, but she’s paranoid. There’s no getting bored of him, of _this_ if it feels this good every single time.

“You have to learn to trust me,” she pants, pushing off her jacket and spiking it to the floorboard. “We can’t keep doing this if you don’t.”

He doesn’t live with their parents, so he’s not privvy to how Joshua and Abigail are when they think they don’t have an audience. The hushed arguments and the silent treatments when one happens to enter a room they didn’t know the other was already in. Bonnie has never seen their fights turn physical, but Joshua is a stern husband. He makes commandments.

Before she graduated high school, just as Kai predicted, she was constantly roped into babysitting her siblings without notice when he wanted to take Abigail out. Except she never felt she had a choice in the matter. Something about his presence and the way he formed the request like a demand she didn’t dare fight. Only once she started college did she quickly develop a habit of studying at the library on campus Friday nights, though that habit has waned now that she spends that night of every week with Kai.

She sees some of that brutishness in the man underneath and inside her and, while in bed it’s hot—she likes to be bossed around a little—out in the real world she’s having none of it. She’s a twentieth century woman and she will not be controlled especially not by someone she can’t even go on a real date with.

“I can’t help it. I want you all to myself.”

Just because the sentiment makes her insides turn to pudding doesn’t make it right or okay. Without killing the mood, she wants to tell him they will not turn into their parents. Abigail picking up her life for the whims of some man and Joshua thinking he can have and do anything he damn well pleases. They can’t turn out like them. She’ll end this before it ever comes to that. “If you want to keep me, then what I say goes.”

He snorts, his breath fanning the pinkish bruise he left on the side of her neck. “Your way or the highway?”

“Exactly.”

He shrugs and concedes to her point. He can’t keep his thoughts organized when she’s around. Whatever keeps her here with him and happily riding his dick...he’ll do it. “Your will be done, your majesty.”

The windows fog up pretty quickly with the two lovers working up a sweat. She stills her hips and backs off, her hands finding the bottom of his shirt and lifting it up and off his head. He does the same with her dress, his head then tilting forward to plant a smooch on the swell of her breast spilling from her bra. He drags his teeth along the tender flesh before sinking them in giving her a little nip. She cries out and he does it again, biting harder. His saliva glistens on her tawny skin and he licks it up, yanks down the cup of her bra, and takes her into his mouth.

She arches her back in ecstasy. On top, she feels powerful, in control of both their pleasure and she gets a sick satisfaction knowing this isn’t the case for her female friends. The girls back home spend much of their time chasing and pleasing boys with very little reciprocity. So far, Bonnie’s felt evenly matched with Kai. He doesn’t judge her inexperience instead encouraging her if she wants to try something new. No pressure. He doesn’t always have the best display of patience, but even when he takes a misstep he never fails to recuperate quickly. He _really_ wants this _._

A new sheen breaks out on his forehead as the familiar feeling crawls up his spine. He pumps into her at a quicker, shallower pace, Bonnie bouncing in his lap. He bucks into her g-spot and it sends her over the edge. She seizes while he keeps thrusting, her walls gripping him as he succumbs to his own orgasm. Hot ejaculate fills her up, his dick twitching spastically until he’s depleted.

“You might need to take two of your pills in the morning,” he says, knowing he just blew a huge load.

She rolls her eyes. “That’s not how birth control works.” Because she hates how _empty_ it feels when he pulls out, she sinks into him and lifts her head. They kiss lazily as they recover.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles with genuine contrition this time.

She nods, their noses gently bumping. “You should be.”

 

 

 

 

_NYE 1993_

The bedroom door is cracked because the plan requires it, but he can’t help but sweep her up and mash his lips to her in a kiss that steals her breath. He pulls back, still holding her to him, and she blinks as she gathers her bearings. “I need you to yell at me.”

“I, what?”

“Yell. At. Me.”

“Kai,” she gently pushes him away and frowns. “I don’t understand—"

“Alibis,” he rushes to get out. “We were busy fighting when my dad fell and knocked himself out. Abby will come in here and break up our argument. She’ll be too busy with us to know where my dad is.”

“This is insanity,” she hisses.

“Yeah, I know,” he dramatically rolls his eyes. “It’s all I have on short notice, so sue me. Now I need you to yell.”

Apprehensive, she folds her arms and steps forward. “Maybe we should just call the police. You and I both saw what happened. It was an accident.”

His brows furrows because she’s not getting it. How can she not get it? “Your mom is the new wife of a widow with eight kids and a very recent fortune. How do you think that’ll play out in court for her? For _you._ You really wanna let that go to trial? And what about the other kids? How do you think Joey will do in a group home with his shenanigans? Some couple in New York will get the twins and you’ll have to go stay with your grandma in Virginia.

“That’ll be it for us. You and me? Over. Stick a fork in all of this,” he waves his arms around gesturing to the lavishly decorated guest room that’s never been used, the house, their way of life. “Because we will be done.”

“You’re not making any sense.” He is and it’s scary how completely logical he sounds.

“I’m making perfect sense! Your mom will rot in prison, accident or not, the kids will get tossed into the system, and this thing we have will end up some sin we confess, say a few hail marys over, and forget about."

“Kai…” her voice soft.

“Goddamnit, Bonnie!” Shoulders roiling with frustration, he spikes the bottle of champagne at the hardwood floor spraying them with glass shards and alcohol. She jumps back from the mess, heels scuffing the finish.

“ _What is your fucking problem!_?” she shouts and she doesn’t know if it’s part of her act or not. Is this a pretend fight they’re having because it feels very real. Honestly, worry for Kai has stricken her. He’s _too_ collected considering.

He whispers “thank you” before his gaze hardens again. “You are my _fucking_ problem!”

Stepping over the wreckage, he approaches Bonnie who hurriedly backs up into the chest of drawers. “No! I don’t care what’s wrong with you. You don’t throw shit at me! Are you out of your mind?!”

He stuffs his hands in his pants pockets and stops. His jaw clicks. Half of him hopes she knows he did that for effect, that he’d never actually show violence towards her, he’d never hurt her, but the other part breathes a tad bit easier. Smashing the wine bottle felt better than punching a wall, his back a little less tense. “Bonnie…”

“Shut up, Kai. Just..” If he wanted a show, she’d give him a show. “Stay away from me, you _freak_!”

The insult stings but before he can come up with an apt response, her mother rushes in—with a cousin of theirs. The women take in the scene before them. The shattered glass and wet floor, Bonnie cowering against the dresser, and a red-in-the-face Kai.

“What is going on with you two?” Abigail roars like a concerned mother would. “Bonnie, baby, are you okay?”

She bristles at the term of endearment she’s never heard her mother use towards her before. “No, I’m not,” she growls. “This psycho just freaked out on me for no reason!”

“Luce, will you take Bonnie upstairs to her room, please? I’d like a private word with my _son._ ” Their cousin Lucy, shrouded in gold silk, holds her hand out as Bonnie carefully steps over the broken glass. Kai reaches out towards her but she flinches and shies away from his searching hand. Holding her around the shoulders, their distant relative ushers her away, but the young girl dares to cast a fearful glance at the two people she’s retreating from before disappearing out of the room.

Now that they’re alone, Abigail drops her mask and marches up to Kai, glass crunching underfoot. “Tell me you didn’t hurt her.”

He sniffs indignantly. “I haven’t done a thing to her she hasn’t asked me to do.”

The older woman’s stomach flips. “How long?”

“Long enough.”

“Malachai, how long has you been sleeping with my daughter, your _stepsister_?”

She has no right to raise her voice and make demands out of him, but he gives her a measly inch. “About two years.”

“Two…” She ashens, blood draining from her carefully made-up face. “Oh my god, this isn’t happening. This is, this is a very bad dream,” she wistfully muses.

“Hey!” Kai grips her shoulder to spin her to face him but promptly lets her go. He doesn’t want to be a second dead Parker male. “You need to listen to me. I could’ve thrown you under the bus, you know that? I’ve never liked you or the way you stole my dad away while my mom was sick.”

A harsh laugh breaks the tension. “Is what you think? That _I_ came looking for Joshua? I’m the homewrecker? Of course you would. You’re such a man,” she scoffs and flips a curtain of her auburn hair over her shoulder. Kai frowns but she barrels on.

“I hadn’t heard from your father since the night he told me Sarah, your mother, was pregnant. With you and Jo. You can’t even imagine the shame I felt packing up my stuff and leaving the man I loved and lived with to run home to my mother.

“ _He_ called me. Looked me up because he was feeling nostalgic and since Sarah was sick he was in need of some comfort. It was a lot to take in, he and your mom having four more kids since having you and were adding two more, but…” She shrugs. “He always wanted a big family.”

Some emotion flitters across her visage, but she clears her throat and locks it down.

“I love your father, I do, but he is not always the nicest husband or kindest man.” Her head swivels as she looks at the mess on the floor. “You get some of your more...intense traits honestly and I understand your resentment, I do. I know how it looks. But if you’re planning on hurting my daughter as some sick form of revenge, I swear I’ll—”

“You keep your mouth shut then so will I,” he promises.

She flares her slim nose at the thinly veiled threat. With no leg to stand on, Abigail wilts. The adrenaline coursing through her slows down and anxiety creeps up on her. “So, what next?”

“You need to go out there and mingle your ass off. A missing host is a bad sign. I’ll worry about me.”

“And Bonnie?”

“She’s fine. She’ll be fine.”

“What about you?” He grimaces. He just told her he’ll figure out his own story, but that’s not what she means. “Worry about yourself, Abby.”

He gestures to the door. She strides away then turns back, her eyes like a deer in headlights. “Someone’s got to find him. We can’t just leave him there all night. He doesn’t deserve that.”

An idea dawns on him.

 

 

 

 

_1989_

_This is a bad idea_ loops in his mind the entirety of the hour and half drive to the cabin on Mount Hood his dad recently purchased. Now that the semester is over, the family is spending the last few weeks of the year out of the city. Kai hasn’t been around at all since moving out, even skipping Thanksgiving. His stepmother, who sent him the invite, called it “a chance to bond”. Kai calls it hell.

But here he is, scaling the side of a mountain to willing trap himself with ten other people.

No one greets him when he pulls into the yard beside the mini-van. His dad’s car is notably absent. Lugging his duffel through the front door, he’s met with shrieks and giggles but none for him. His twin zips past stalking after one of their little sisters with a camcorder. Something akin to ceramic breaks on the floor above him followed by “ _Joey_!”

Bonnie lounges on the floor with her back against the leather sofa and a blond baby between her bare and outstretched legs. At first glance, he thinks she’s not wearing any bottoms, but when she shifts at his entrance he catches a peek of purple and plaid fleece shorts under her oversized shirt. Luke squirms back a little before settling at the juncture of her thighs, Bonnie’s hand absentmindedly rubbing his bloated belly while they watch television. Kai can count on one hand the number of times he held either of the twins in the past year since they were born.

He pivots to find the kitchen.

 

 

 

 

Kai lasts a week in the three story cabin. It’s crowded and noisy, and he has to share a room with Joey and August. Joey’s annoying but he’s a teenager, so, even when he wants to smother his younger brother with a pillow, he gets it. The girls have it worst. Agnes and Shannon share a bunk bed while Olivia sleeps with Jo and Luke with Bonnie in the master suite. Joshua and Abby are in the smallest room on the bottom floor away from the kids and have a private entrance. Not that Joshua is there much. He drives back to Portland for work every day and returns to the cabin in time for dinner cooked by Abigail, Jo, and assisted by Bonnie.

It’s all very domestic and triggers his gag reflex.

He comes upon Bonnie in the kitchen late one night. Their parents have retired downstairs and their younger siblings have been tucked in. Jo’s upstairs on the phone with some guy and Joey on the couch playing Tetris on his gameboy.

She’s in her black sleep shirt, which isn’t as long as she thinks it is, with a mug of hot cocoa in her hands. A stream of cool air blows across the pond of chocolate as she’s perched on the counter. He hesitates at the archway, not having been alone with her since the night of his birthday on the porch. When she doesn’t react to his presence, he soldiers on. He knows his dad brought alcohol with him. It’s just a matter of which cabinet he stowed it in.

He starts with the ones closest to his right and he knows her emerald eyes follow his search. Each cupboard turns up void of what he wants and each door gets shut more forcibly than the one before. He works his way left until he’s directly in front of Bonnie, who swings her legs back and forth, heels lightly banging the lower cabinets.

“Ya mind?”

She wordlessly shakes her head and takes a sip of her drink. Resting the mug in her lap, she licks her upper lip of the white froth from melted marshmallows. Other than that, she doesn’t move.

Kai huffs and reaches above her for the cabinet door. There, on the highest shelf he spots a peek of amber liquid capped with red wax but to reach he’d have to lean fully against Bonnie or have her scoot off to the side. “You’re in my way.”

“Bummer.”

“Must you be a bitch right now?”

“I know you are but what am I?” she snickers, lips pressed to the warm rim of her cup.

He squints then he gets it. Catches the ever so slightest whiff. “Are you drunk?”

Her glassy eyes grow wide but her smile grows wider. “I don’t know how to ski or snowboard, I hate the cold weather in general, and I’m stuck on the side of a mountain babysitting all damn day. Yes, I’m drinking.”

The sardonic whisper rant catches him off guard. It’s so unlike the girl who sought his validation several months before. Eyes playful yet suspicious, spine bowed like a crescent with a smirk as sharp as knife.

“Mind sharing?”

Her mouth does a weird thing, puckers to the side like she’s unsuccessfully biting back a smile. She scoots down the counter to her right by lifting one thigh and then the other a few times giving him clear access to the cabinet. The seventeen year old watches as he stretches his already long body to reach, his shirt riding up to show a bit of his toned abdomen. His fingers swipe the glass bottle but he can’t quite grasp it.

“Let me.”

She sets her mug to the side, pulls her knees up, and tucks them under her on the counter. Balancing effortlessly on the balls of her feet, she stands up fully. Instinct has Kai’s hands shooting up to steady her but they hover around her waist without actually touching her. She grabs the bottle of Maker’s Mark while he gulps at the realization that she is, in fact, not wearing shorts under her shirt this time. The shirt’s hem barely covers the globe of her ass, but she’s quick to clammer down to her original position. She holds the bottle by its wax covered neck and juts it towards him. He accepts it and turns to rummage elsewhere for a glass.

He takes a few calming gulps of the bourbon before turning back to Bonnie. Her cat eyes are trained on him and it makes him roll his shoulders back a little. She’s always _watching_ him. It’s clinical, like he’s the unpredictable variable in this equation when it’s clearly the other way around.

“Take a picture. It’ll last longer,” he cooly remarks and she smirks. Looks like they’ve both been watching the same cheesy movie. Bare feet slap on the linoleum, Kai crossing back over to Bonnie. Her head tilts up to maintain eye contact with him and he’s got to say he’s a little impressed with her. She doesn’t scare easy.

He takes another tug of his drink and she mirrors the movement sipping her spiked cocoa. They meet eyes again. “Well?” she bites and his eyebrows bounce.

“Well, what?”

“Are you done being an anti-social asshole and ready join the family?”

“I was here first.”

“Were you? Because the twins barely recognize you.”

“They’re babies. They hardly understand object permanence.”

She glances away. It’s funny, he’s funny but she’s also a jerk. No way she’s letting him get under her skin. “What was your mother like?”

His spine goes ramrod straight. “Don’t fucking ask me about my dead mom.”

Instead of kowtowing to his abrasiveness, she sniffs and presses further. “Why not? The kids don’t talk about her. Neither does your father. Jo’s a steel trap. I figure someone should be talking to the twins about her, who she was, what she was like...”

It’s a nice sentiment, but he’s too blinded by the red of an oozing, festering wound to appreciate it. “And they’re supposed to learn all that shit from you? You never knew her and all your mom did was replace and erase her.”

She flinches at the statement. It’s mean but it’s not false. “I’m…” Her mouth twitches like she’s battling against crying. “I’m trying, okay? Can’t you give me a goddamn inch?” When she meets his glare, her eyes, while watery, are unwavering with conviction.

He downs the rest of his bourbon and sucks his teeth. “No.”

Kai drives back to Portland the next morning.

 

 

 

 

_NYE 1993_

“Hey! Jo!”

“Mm,” she hums keening into him. She sways on her feet and almost loses her balance but she rights herself. Kai just watches her with hands stuffed in his pockets. He sees she found that drink she was looking for. “Sup?”

“Where does Dad keep the board games? I was looking for Monopoly, but this fucking house gets me turned around every time I’m here.”

She snorts. “It’s New Year’s Eve and you want to play Candy Land.”

“Monopoly.”

“Whatever. You can’t play that by yourself. You’d just steal from the bank and, like, own every business.” She bites back her laughter then gasps exuberantly. “You’d be a monopoly!”

“Someone’s been paying attention in Econ.”

“No one will play it with you. It’s Agnes’ favorite, but no one likes you anymore, Mal-a- _kaiiiii_.”

“Ouch.”

“It’s true,” she shrugs, her shoulder lifting in an overly exaggerated manner. “You’re never around. You haven’t been pretty much since Mom died. Bonnie’s more my sibling than you are. Like, I can barely remember a time without her.”

“You’re hurtin’ my feelings, Josie,” he deadpans. “All I want is to play a nice, wholesome board game with my little brothers and sisters and you’re ragging on me. Are you on the rag?”

“Go screw yourself.” She shoves him, and he stumbles back with a grin spread across his face. This has to be Bonnie’s influence. Jo was nothing but a wilting flower before the Bennetts came along. He’s impressed but sobers up regardless.

“Monopoly. Where is it? Before Joey burns the house down.”

“Ugh! It’s in Dad’s study. He keeps the games in the closet in there so the twins don’t end up swallowing the pieces.”

“His study...which would be where?” he feigns ignorance.

“God, you— I’ll be right back.”

His hard gaze follows her as she stomps barefoot down the hallway.

It’s heinous, he’s aware. If he’d mentioned his plan to Abigail she would’ve fought him. Bonnie would’ve succeeded at getting him to change his mind, but this is how it has to be. This way has the least amount of collateral damage. No foster care for the kiddos, no jail time for dear old stepmom, and no losing Bonnie. Not that he’ll ever come clean to her, but Jo will just have to forgive him for this.

Minutes tick by and he expects an old fashioned, blood curdling scream but there isn’t one. He even meets Abigail’s curious eyes from across the crowded living room. A dumber man would be tempted to go check on her, but Kai is not a dumb man.

A few guests shriek while a handful mutter for their respective gods under their breaths, which makes Kai turn around. Staggering down the hallway towards the main room is Jo covered in their father’s blood. It is stained the front of her gray tweed, knee-length dress, smeared under her chin and the side of her face, and paints the palms of her hands like she’d cradled the dead body in grief. Red footprints stamp the floor like a treasure map.

“Can someone please call nine-one-one?”

Shannon hovers at the edge of the crowd, unable to advance toward her big sister, while Joey looks as if he could projectile vomit right there. Heels clack determinedly through the throng of bystanders and then Bonnie appears beside Jo. The sisters hold onto each other while voices mill about over what could have possibly happened to poor Josette Parker. Bonnie’s angry gaze cuts Kai when he dares to meet it, but that’s a fight they can have later.

There’s a clamor when two men go to investigate and find Joshua. What follows is a frenzy of panicked guests, the timely arrival of the police and an ambulance—and a fire truck because the Christmas tree burning really had gotten out of hand.

The clock strikes midnight ushering in the new year for the west coast around the time the police conclude most of the guests weren’t witnesses to Joshua’s actual death—only Jo’s shock over finding him. That’s nothing to celebrate as they pack up and escape the McMansion.

Shuddering against the wind, Bonnie tucks her hands under her arms and holds herself tightly. The lights on the firetruck and ambulance both pulse but neither blare their sirens. The bonfire’s been extinguished and the paramedics are waiting for the coroner to arrive and remove the body. An detective questions her mother when a heavy sport coat falls on her shoulders. “Bundle up, buttercup.” She glances behind her as Kai strolls back over to his spot on the other side of the yard and resumes ignoring her entire existence, as if the deer gathered at the woodline are far more fascinating than the drama behind him.

 

 

 

 

_1989_

It’s January in Portland and it’s fucking freezing. Bonnie shivers, grips her winter coat tighter around her middle, and wishes she wore tights or leg warmers with her navy dress. Her mother forbade her wearing black, but they’re low on variety at the moment what with moving across country and much of their stuff in boxes, so she’s dressed in a nautical babydoll dress with white stripes embellishing the collar, her halloween costume from a few months ago. That with her barrel curls, she looks like a teenage, black Shirley Temple freezing her tits off in front of the government building.

“Why can’t we wait inside?” she asks for the third time. They’ve standing here for twenty minutes and she can no longer feel her toes in her mary janes.

Ignoring her, Abigail huffs. “I told him we’d wait here.” She scoffs and wipes her hair out of her face, the wind whipping her white sundress about her thighs. Unlike her daughter, she wore nude tights paired with kitten heels. “We had winter in Virginia.”

Frowning at her mother’s use of past tense, she glowers at her own bare legs. “Yeah, whatever. This is a different kind of cold.”

“I told you about that whatever word. Don’t talk like that around Joshua.”

“Doesn’t he have teenagers? I’m sure he’s heard it from them.”

Abigail rounds on her, soft tendrils loosening from a solitary plait. “Until you’re eighteen, you still listen to me. It might not have bothered your father having a daughter with a smart mouth, but now that you’re with me full-time…”

She huffs and collects herself. The girl is sixteen and it’s a lot to ask of her. Until very recently she and Rudy split custody, their relationship having fizzled years back. Gaining full custody to then pick up and move to the west coast would be a drag on anyone. But she promised her daughter an adventure and so far it’s been less than thrilling for them both.

She sets her hands on Bonnie’s shoulders and dusts away bits of lint from the wool coat. “Be nice. Just, ya know... _try_. For me.” The girl snorts, so she amends the statement. “If not for me, then for yourself. This is it, Bon. No looking back.”

Cutting her eyes to keep from glaring at the older woman, she shrugs and steps out of her mother’s reach. Anger is a clenched fist while hopelessness is hands grasping and coming away with nothing but air, so she sticks with the first emotion. That feels tangible enough.

An ugly burgundy mini-van with a strip of wood paneling pulls up to the curb. Abigail lets out a little squeal and Bonnie visibly grimaces at her mother. The side door opens and the Partridge family spills out, but the two Bennett women focus on the male driver. Joshua Parker steps out of the van and straightens his black tie. _Thank Christ he isn’t in a tux_ is Bonnie’s first thought. He looks like...a dad and she tries to hide her utter disappointment. Grey peppers his temples, his dark hair slick back and khakis ironed to a crisp. He strides up to them, embraces Abigail while pressing a kiss to her forehead, and then pulls away to hold his hand out to Bonnie.

“Bonnie, it’s nice to finally meet you.”

She stares at the hand wondering _are we really doing this?_ Swallowing, she shakes it with the kind of firm grip her father taught her. “Mister Parker.”

“Please. Call me Joshua.”

She gives him a tight smile while internally vowing to always call him Mister Parker. He’s not her father. Unlike this bunch of rascals congregating around them, she has her other parent. Her gaze flickers over to the dark haired girl struggling with a carseat and remembers their mother died in childbirth in November. She rebukes herself for the nasty thought about them not having both parents.

There are eight of them and that realization makes Bonnie go pale. She’d been told she was getting a whole gaggle of brothers and sisters, even memorized all their names on the plane to pass the time, but seeing them all here overwhelms her. Josette’s the oldest girl, a little older than herself, and clearly the only one concerned with making sure the babies are snuggled and warm against the bitter cold. Lucas and Olivia are months old. Agnes with the brunette pigtails is the next youngest born after August with the dark, floppy hair. Shannon’s blonde with her nose in a _Goosebumps_ book. A teenage boy shoulders past her and she almost drops it. That has to be Joseph, black hair and cold blue eyes like Josette.

Someone’s missing, though. The acrid scent of cigarette smoke drifts their way and she catches sight of the body leaning against the passenger side door facing the other direction. That must be Malachai, Josette’s twin brother, she mentally catalogs. There are eight of them and one of her. If they like her, maybe this won’t be so bad but if they hate her...

“Baby, what happened to your nose?” Abigail affectionately runs her nimble fingers down the bridge of Joshua’s nose. There’s no telling the last time they saw each other face to face, but clearly there is a notable difference. There’s no bruising and it’s not crooked, but if she squints maybe it’s a little off-center. He seems to relish the feel of her hands which causes the lot of children on both sides to make faces.

“I’m fine. It’s fine. Just had a little scuffle.”

“With who?”

Instead of answering, he deflects. “Have you two been out here waiting? Let’s go inside where it’s warm.”

Out of Bonnie’s peripheral vision the oldest son flicks the rest of his lit cigarette into the middle of the street and rounds the hood of the car. His features are all over the other kids, but there’s something about him that’s so put together. Cold, slate eyes and dark hair, straight nose and height that dwarfs her already short stature. He’s the prototype and the others are piecemeal. Without a greeting, he strides past her and into the building after their parents. The kids follow and she hesitates before going over to the lone Parker juggling a fussy baby.

“Need help?”

The raven haired girl meets her cautious albeit hopeful gaze and squints. Her pink lips twitch before lifting slightly. “Yeah, thanks.” She hands a blond baby to Bonnie then tucks a chunk of black hair behind her ear and reaches into the van for the other twin. She retrieves a sleeping Olivia and turns to find Lucas having settled considerably while in Bonnie’s arms. Her crystal eyes dart up to look at the new girl. “Luke is never that calm.”

If that’s her idea of a compliment, Bonnie will take it.

Toting the twins, the two girls enter the government building for the civil ceremony marrying Joshua Parker and Abigail Bennett, effectively blending their families together. Luke on her hip and tugging on one of her curls, she scribbles her name on the witness line below her mother’s signature. Malachai silently does the same for his father before slipping away after the judge finalizes the marriage.

That night Abigail and Bonnie go back to their hotel and the next day they move into the Parker family home on the outskirts of town.

 

 

 

 

_1994_

The cops won’t know more without an autopsy, but they have no reason to immediately suspect foul play. That doesn’t ease the knot in Bonnie’s or Abigail’s stomachs, but a bullet dodged is a bullet dodged. Lucy sticks around cleaning up the house while Abigail sits the shaken group of kids down in the den and tries to explain what all this will mean for the family. Not that she even knows. Completely disinterested Kai stands off by the staircase and stares at the ceiling while Bonnie sits beside Jo, her arm thrown over the traumatized girl’s shoulders.

After an uncomfortable discussion with questions that couldn’t possibly be answered tonight, everyone is sent to bed but Bonnie hangs back. Abigail goes to join Lucy in the kitchen, so Kai approaches her. She hasn’t spoken to him since being dragged out of the guestroom and he’s hoping she’s not too shaken by his antics. It needed to look real, feel real. He needed her pissed and a little frightened.

She doesn’t retreat, which is a good sign. “I can’t stay here. I can’t sleep here knowing what happened. Not tonight, I can’t.”

Kai nods because he gets it. He hates the McMansion without the added factor of manslaughter, so he takes her to his place. In the time they’ve been sleeping together, she’s never slept over. The most she’s done is wake up at two in the morning and snuck out.

 

 

 

 

The drive across town is quiet, Bonnie trembling in Kai’s coat even with the heat at full blast. At one point he notices the multiple tail lights queued at a traffic stop, but fortunately the turn for his apartment complex comes before it. He swings into his parking space, turns off the car, and instantly gets out to open Bonnie’s door for her. She doesn’t meet his eyes as she gets out, so he silently follows her to the second floor and lets her into the dark apartment. He fumbles with the lock and turns expecting her to be standing there but she’s not. Muffled sounds come from his bedroom and he slips out of his shoes and heads there.  

He finds her hanging up his coat in his closet. She pads across the carpet to the bed and crawls under the covers. Nearing the bed, he removes his button down shirt and does the same. When he lays on his back, she doesn’t hesitate to curl against him. Her tremors slow the longer they lay together and he thinks she’s fallen asleep, but a tiny voice fills the silence. “I’m sorry.”

He frowns. “For what?”

“Your father…” Her cheek rubs across his chest as she looks up at him. The streetlamp shining outside the window over the bed casts a cool, dim light across them. “I can’t imagine.”

It’s too soon for past tense. His brain can’t compute it entirely. The whole night like a series of events he observed rather than participated in. His nostrils burn. “It’s better this way.”

“Better that he’s dead?”

The question hangs in the air. His stepmother was the enemy in his eyes for so long, but his father wronged her first all those years ago. Still, she found a way to forgive him. He’s always heard about how messy love could be and he always scoffed at the very notion. But he could see the draw between his father and Abigail. It’s how he is with Bonnie. Everything he did tonight was for the girl in his arms right now. But…

Seventeen is too young to lose one’s mother. Though Joshua teetered on the side of neglectful and increasing emotionally absent as Kai grew older, both of his parents are now gone. He swallows the thickness clogging his throat and sniffs. This will hit him, he knows, but right now he swats it back with a stick. Let it happen when he’s alone.

Sensing the war waging inside of him, Bonnie scoots up and grabs his jaw to turn his face towards her. Though he’s looking at her, his glare isn’t meant _for_ her so she ignores it. Instead leans up to meld her lips to his. He’s resistant, his nose and upper lip twitching as they’re pressed together. She applies more pressure until he relaxes, his arm stretching across his middle to drape over her waist.

They pull back and lock eyes for a long moment. Pupils blown out and ragged breathing, Kai looks at her because he can’t bring himself to say it. _I did it for you._ She doesn’t verbally respond, but somehow Bonnie knows.

The corner of her mouth ticks. “That was fucked up what you did to Jo.”

Humored, a sharp gust of air leaves his nose and he turns his head to stare at the ceiling. “Yeah.”

“Does she know?”

“No. I told her I wanted to play Monopoly and couldn’t find the game. Didn’t take a lot of convincing.”

“What about my mother? What does she know?”

He catches on quick that she means a different kind of information and meets her worried gaze. He’d essentially told Abigail that he was serious about this _thing_ with Bonnie. Deadly serious. “She knows enough.”

Ashamed, she buries her face in his armpit, his masculine scent filling her nose. “Like this wasn’t complicated enough,” she grumbles.

He doesn’t appreciate her tone, so he pinches her hip and she yelps. “Ow! What?”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?” she questions. He mimics her mutterings. “This _is_ complicated. I wanted to keep my mother out of it as long as I could.”

“Until when, you got bored?”

“No.”

“You found someone else?”

“ _No_.”

“Then until when?”

“Until I could hold your hand at the dinner table and not care that we’d get bug-eyed stares, okay!”

Mad that he pushed, even madder at herself for feeling so strongly about him that she sees it as something to be corrupted by outside influences, she flips over on her other side. He huffs, the edges of a nicfit closing in on him. The mattress shifts and bows under their weight as he turns on his side and scooches closer. He spoons her lean frame, curving the front of his body to her back, and she lets him. Working to warm her up, his hand runs over the gooseflesh of her shoulder and down her arm then back again.

Craning his head forward, he rests his chin in the pocket between her neck and collarbone. The strap of her dress glides down her arm at the nudging of Kai’s fingers but catches at her elbow. Still, it’s enough for his hand to slip under the soft material and palm her breast. “You don’t really get to have the only say anymore, princess.”

His thumb grazes over her hardening nipple. “Kai,” she groans. Their romp in the closet feels like a lifetime ago, her body reacting to him like it’s the first time they’ve touched in weeks. He kneads the supple mound at a lackadaisical pace and ghosts his lips along the length of her neck. Humming, he presses himself into her ass and she responds in kind by backing against him. “We can’t.”

“Why can’t we?”

“Your father…”

“Is the furthest thing from my mind when I have your boob in my hand and my dick in your ass.”

She makes an offensive noise at his filthy mouth but it’s more of a moan as he grinds his hardness into her. He fondles her other breast, but she makes to flip over to face him and his hand slips out of her dress. “Will it make you feel better?”

His hooded eyes rove over the hills and valleys of her body under his sheets before meeting her gaze. If their relationship is emotionally stunted, well, it’s partly her fault. She’s trained him to leave feelings at the door, so what does she really expect at this point? They can work at the touchy-feely stuff later, but the touching and feeling is what he wants right now. “More than anything.”

A phantom of disappointment crosses her face, but she says nothing. Instead, Bonnie pulls her dress’ straps down her arms and shimmies out of it before kicking it deeper into the cavern of his sheets. He does the same with his pants and belt then tugs her to him. Her skin is feverishly warm and lips fervid on his. He coaxes open her mouth to taste her and rolls them so his back falls to the mattress. She settles on his hips, his growing erection snug against her warm cunt with only his underwear separating them.

Vibrations like morse code on his lips pulls him out of his cloud of lust. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” she repeats with misty eyes. “About tonight. About everything.”

He gives her a bored frown. If he had to do it twice, he wouldn’t change a single thing about what went down at the party. She’ll just have to suck it up and get over it. “Would you shut up?”

Her eyes drop to his chest and she places her hands there to push herself off him. She’s quiet for a minute digesting his rebuff to think up a good retort. Pouting, she mutters, “Why don’t you make me?”

Jerking upright, he wraps his arm around her back and brings her flush to his chest. Her hot breath fans on his face and he captures her mouth in a bruising kiss. Knowing exactly how to rile him up, she grabs his shoulders and grinds down on him, her hips moving in slow circles.

They quickly find the rhythm they had going when they were in the closet, and soon Bonnie is craving to feel him move with her, inside her again. It’s mutual. Holding her tight with her legs around his waist, Kai turns them over and presses her into the bed. He worms his way out of his boxers, kicks them off, and then makes his home between her legs. Bracing himself one of his elbows, he teases her moist entrance with his tip because he knows it drives her crazy. And it does. She all but purrs underneath him when he makes to slip it in but instead swipes it up again to flick her clit. “Kai…” she moans when he finally enters her. He leans in to suck at her neck with the intention of her starting the new year with his hickeys.

In their rutting, he ignores the light tapping from across the room but it’s a gasp that stills him.

“What— _the fuck?_ ” Jo stands in the open doorway. She changed out of her bloodied dress, dons gray sweats now, and while the blank stare she wore after finding her dead father will haunt Bonnie forever it’s nothing compared to the myriad of emotions on the young woman’s face. Confusion, disbelief, disgust, surprise, and then it loops back to confusion. Embarrassed, Bonnie sinks deeper into the mattress using Kai’s body above her as a shield. It’s not a permanent solution because Kai grits as he pulls out and rolls off her.

He pulls the sheets to cover Bonnie up to her neck while he leans back on the headboard. “Anyone else tell you it’s rude to enter a room without knocking?”

“I did knock,” Jo flatly responds. Her cold blue eyes remain trained on Bonnie before she blinks herself out of her shock. “What kind of _Flowers In the Attic_ , VC Andrews bullshit is this? You two are sleeping together?! Since when? And how? You, like, hate each other. Wait, don’t answer that last one.” She retches. “I’m going to be sick.”

“It’s not like that,” Bonnie starts, her eyes darting to Kai. “Well, it is, but…It’s not like he and I have ever been close. Not like brother and sister.”

“But we’re family!”

“It’s not the same with us. It never has been.”

A hard glare turns on the older twin. “You’re a pig. Anyone with a pulse, huh?”

Kai tilts his head to the side. “You think I’m having sex with Bonnie because she was convenient?”

Folding her arms, Jo shrugs. “I dunno. Was she? _Was he_?” she addresses them both, and that question directed at Bonnie makes him wonder if she ever told their sister about their first time together. Her reaction speaks for itself.

He’s of the mind that he doesn’t have to explain himself to her, to anyone really, and he already had it out with Abigail over this. He’s low on juice, but for Bonnie’s sake…

“Josette, you don’t get to question me in my own apartment. Bonnie and I are...together, I s’pose. Get used to it. Besides, what are you even doing here?”

Head down, she jabs her big toe into the fuzzy carpeting. “I couldn’t make myself go to sleep. I kept thinking I’d open my door and see Dad’s ghost stalking the hallways. Figured Bonnie and I could share the pull out couch here, but it looks like I’ll have it all to myself.”

The passive aggression stings, but Bonnie takes it in stride. She’s been keeping a secret from her sister and best friend for over two years. Jo’s entitled to her hurt, but that’s about all she’s entitled to. Knees steeple under the sheets and she sits up. “You don’t have to like it. It’s complicated, okay. And messy. But this?” Her hand gestures to the space between her and Kai’s thighs. “This isn’t about you. This is ours.”

Wiping black bangs from her forehead, Jo huffs while reluctant acceptance blankets her expression. “Just tell me you haven’t been doing anything around the kids.”

“Gross” is Kai’s knee-jerk response while Bonnie scoffs, “Of course not!”

“So, what? Is this really going to be a thing? You know what?” Pink palms go up in surrender. “Our father just died. I’m not dealing with this right now. Could you just, like, _not_ do it while I’m in the next room?”

“It’s my apartment and we were here first.”

“Well, I was here second. And I’m the guest, so there.” She spins on her heels and shuts the door behind her.

He’d been observing the way Bonnie handled Jo, how, instead of curling in on herself and bowing her head in shame, her spine straightened and she leaned forward. She finally turns to look at him. Resting her chin against her collarbone, she lowers her gaze. The corner of her lips tip up in a mischievous grin. “Looks like we’re going to have to be really quiet.”

The smoke in her voice makes his dick twitch. “We’ll see about that...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's it! i don't know what else to say except i hope you like it :D

**Author's Note:**

> i make no apologies or excuses. unbeta’d just in time to start your new year off right ;)


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